9. Last Long Played

STEEN: Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. Classic iTunes serendipity — I synced a few thousand more songs from stuff I have on the server at home to my new phone, then I Bluetooth connected to a car I borrowed in Norway. The combination randomly selected this beautiful music poem as I was on my way to dinner with two childhood friends, and I ended up replaying it the whole way.

TALKIN' CLOUD'S SPIN: Everything Dylan puts out is worth a listen — although I'm not too sure about that Christmas album of his.

"To serve service providers better than ever and anyone," he says. "We’ve been at this game since 2000, first as SWsoft and then as Parallels."

"In 2015 all the pieces will be coming together for hosters who are ready to up their game," Steen says. "Differentiated, value-added services will continue to drive growth and higher ARPUs, great container technology will become available for everyone and end customer demand will really take off in the SMB and developer markets — it’ll be a blast."

Who does Steen challenge to sit in the hot seat?

Taylor Rhodes, president and CEO at Rackspace, a San Antonio, Texas-based managed cloud hosting company.

What is "Friday's Last Word"?

Friday's Last Word welcomes cloud-centric CEOs who are willing to speak with Talkin' Cloud without someone peeking over a shoulder. Click on each photo to learn more about the CEO you're viewing — it's that simple.

Think you can handle sitting in the hot seat? Send an email to Talkin' Cloud Senior Editor CJ Arlotta at cj.arlotta [at] penton.com for further information. If he doesn't get back to you right away, bother him some more — and more.

Follow CJ Arlotta on Twitter @cjarlotta and Google+ for further updates on the story above — or if you just want to say hello.